


Two Kinds of Corporate Men

by FelineJaye



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Ambiguous Ship Reference, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 06:43:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6693661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FelineJaye/pseuds/FelineJaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are, in this moment, two of Rhys. One will be a humble hero, the other will die a just death. it's just that the humble hero nor the dying villain made the choices one would've expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Kinds of Corporate Men

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by my two playthroughs of TFTB, each with a very different Rhys. My headcanon's for their character arc and for how their story would end after the game ended up very different from each other.

There are, at this moment, two of Rhys.

One will be a hero, in his own way. A humble hero, a name in another stories that it will carry on through history. The other will go down in a blaze of fire - just like Handsome Jack did.

One had played the game, to achieve his dream of climbing Hyperion's ladder. He'd looked up to Handsome Jack and everything he was meant to represent, he'd made 'connections' - the corporate version of 'friends' - through the various departments. When his life plan went to shit, when he was stuck in a hidden Atlas facility and his rival and a mob boss held his friends at gunpoint, when Handsome Jack appeared once more and said;

"Listen, we can take over this whole facility, kid. We've got this."

This Rhys trusted Jack. Jack had a plan! And they got out, alive and unharmed. And he'd thought Jack might actually be offering to ally with him, had said he would trust the AI. Would trust the man he'd looked up to.

But the other one, he had often felt his skin crawl, as he desperately tried to climb Hyperion's ladder. He plastered posters of their CEO and President on his office wall like he was meant to, he played along with the corporate games. When his life plan went to shit, when he was stuck in a hidden Atlas facility and his rival and a mob boss held his friends at gunpoint, and Fiona had desperately shouted for him to;

"It's under control, Rhys. Trust me."

And he had. He'd told Fiona to do whatever she could to get them out of here. And sure, they came out of it with a few bumps and bruises... and with one paralysed friend. But at least he hadn't trusted Jack. That was what was most important - he hadn't trusted that villain. When Jack had tried to persuade him again, he'd gotten angry and told him in no uncertain terms that they'd never be allies.

One Rhys kept Jack his dirty little secret. Came up with lies and cover ups to make sure the others didn't find out and that they wouldn't guess. He lied to the woman he thought he might just be falling for (if only in that 'puppy love' sort of way). And when he was sitting in the big chair, in Jack's office, and the man himself told Rhys that _they could rule Hyperion - **together**!_ Well...

It was everything that Rhys had ever dreamed. As if every moment of their alliance had been leading up to this. And he'd agreed and Jack had publicly announced that Rhys was the new President of Hyperion.

The other Rhys told everyone about Jack at the first oppertunity. He told Vaughn as soon as they fell out of the caravan, it was only just before returning to Helios that he found a good time to tell the con-artist sisters, but still he told them. He'd even tried to tell Athena, though Jack had stopped that fast. And then he'd sat gingerly in the big chair in Jack's office, not wanting to get comfortable more because of the feeling that the chair was soaked with blood rather than the knowledge of Jack's sexcapades, and Jack had offered for them to rule Hyperion together.

Of course this Rhys turned him down. Ever since Jack appeared this Rhys had done nothing else but put him down, not just reject but actively do the opposite of Jack's advice and had denied every offer of co-operation. He would never work with Handsome Jack. Having seen and heard the truth of Pandora himself had only strengthened that resolve.

Both of these Rhys' were betrayed, at slightly different moments. The first was betrayed when Jack told him he would have the 'privilege' of dying so Jack could live on inside of him. The other betrayed when Jack strapped him to the chair and tried to cut him open.

The first Rhys, when he escaped Jack's plan, took one look at Yvette in her cell - the only other Hyperion who'd been his friend. Or so he'd thought. And all the betrayal and anger and sheer hurt had welled up and he'd stormed away from her.

The second Rhys knew he couldn't let her stay there, knew the good thing to do would be to release her. So he'd said how she should help him and had let her go.

Both where saved by their Loaderbot. Both crash landed in the wreckage of the Helios space station. Both found what remained of Handsome Jack.

One Rhys felt pity. Jack was not a bad man, not exactly. Things had just spiralled out of control and Jack, poor Jack, he had never learned. When this Rhys pulled out his arm, pulled out his implant and had pulled out his ECHO Eye, he'd merely stared at the cybernetic iris for a long time before tucking it carefully into a pocket. Jack's begging rang in his ears and... he couldn't kill the man. Not one final time. He'd looked around at the burning and crumbling wreckage and he'd known what Jack meant when he said that this was what success looked like. He didn't like it.

This Rhys had given Jack the final words;

"Goodbye, Jack. It's over."

The other Rhys had stared Jack down and had told him that they were not the same, that he would be a hero, that this destruction of Helios was the last time this would happen. Rhys spat that he would never be like Handsome Jack. When this Rhys had pulled out his arm, pulled out his implant and had pulled out his ECHO Eye, he'd firmly crushed the electronics in his fist, trying to crush the fading image of Jack's triumpant smirk. Somehow it was Jack's smirk that remained burned into his mind and vision, instead of Jack's begging.

This Rhys had given Jack the final words;

"I win, Jack. It's over."

Both Rhys' collapsed on the broken floor of Jack's office. Both missed Loaderbot scavenging the endoskeleton and gun from metres away. Both took the ownership rights to Atlas. Both walked away to try and begin anew.

Both were captured by a Stranger. Both retold their different stories. Both joined forces with their friends once more to bring back Gortys. Both helped defeat The Traveller, though with completely different teams. Both reached out with Fiona, reminiscent of when they'd reached out to press the button that brought up the Gortys Project, and touched the container in the Vault of the Traveller.

In that moment, there are two of Rhys.

But from that moment on, they start to differ to much to ever be the same man again.

There were two kinds of Rhys - one was cutthroat, one admired Handsome Jack, one wanted nothing more than to run the biggest and baddest corporation their was.

There were two kinds of Rhys - the other was softly-spoken, he abhorred Handsome Jack and wanted nothing more than to never become the man that had once run the biggest and baddest corporation there was.

But the first Rhys had learned from his mistakes. He'd risen to the highest point - he'd achieved his dream of being Hyperion's President. He'd had that dream crash down around his ears - he'd literally brought it crashing down around his ears. He remembered Jack's words and heeded their warning. He was much better at killing than Jack was, he'd brought down a space station of relatively innocent people. People who didn't deserve to get caught up in all this. And he'd done it because he'd thought it was the right thing. He'd seen true success in the form of the piles of destruction he had wrought, destruction he'd created with his own two hands and the help of Pandora's atmosphere. He knew he had to take a different approach to life. To seek no glory, to seek no recognition.

He had joked that he kinda liked it when the Children of Helios had shown their reverence. He had been lying, nervously trying to cover how it made him shiver. He the beheaded statue of Handsome Jack with his name on it had made him want to throw up out of terror.

Because he'd learnt what he could become. And in that moment of learning, he'd known he never would become that kind of Rhys.

But the other Rhys, he had held on to his spite. He had down the heroic thing and had spurned Handsome Jack at every crossroad. But for what? To be trapped anyway? To have Jack force his hand and bring the whole space station down around them? Jack's words felt like taunts to this Rhys' ears and only his determination kept the taunts from piercing him. The deaths from the crashed space station had been necessary and he regretted none of them. He would destroy everything all over again if it meant destroying Jack for one finale time. He wasn't going to fail like Jack had done. He was going to change Pandora - he would **revolutionise** it. He was going to be a goddamn hero.

He had told his friends that he'd felt uncomfortable when the Children of Helios had shown their reverence. He had been lying, to himself as well as them. It had felt good to be acknowledged. Some part of him had already wondered - purely speculatively - how many of them would follow him to Atlas when he asked.

He hadn't learnt anything. He'd just strengthened a singular resolve to never become like Handsome Jack.

So, of course, the first Rhys achieved his new dream and went on to be a supporting character to the rest of Pandora's heroes.

The other kind of Rhys achieved his dream and never become Handsome Jack. He became much, much worse.

**Author's Note:**

> Played my first Rhys not... completely ruthless - he only through his friends under the bus once, uh, twice if you count the whole 'President' thing. But I felt in the end he'd learnt a lot and had grown as a person.
> 
> My second and final Rhys... well he spoke kind words but in the end I felt like he'd been lying a whole huge bunch to himself and had basically been deluding himself like Jack had. So. Not a fun end for that guy, I imagine.
> 
> I thought it was interesting that my scheming-corporate!Rhys ended up being the good guy and my anti-Jack-pro-Pandora!Rhys was more likely to walk down to Hell on a bedrock of good intentions.
> 
> Hope it was an interesting read, even if it relies kinda heavily on my own headcanons :3


End file.
